Isn't the question nonsensical ? inodes are a property of some filesystems like ext, xfs..., that you can happen to use on Linux. If you installed Linux, say, on an NTFS partition there would be no inode anywhere, no ?
the inode vs filename distinction is historical unix behavior (but I don't remember whether posix mandates it), and it is quite important and relevant in many system programming scenarios. Of course not all filesystems support it.
The question is still phrased terribly of course and the candidate would have to reverse engineer what the interviewer is actually asking to have a chance to answer it.
does not seem trivial given the differing permission model, but not impossible either. for fat32 I wonder though if the total absence of permissions allows for that.
There's a few things you'd need to patch up because a few important utilities are picky about the permissions of their config files (as a protection against misconfiguration).
